Quentin Tarantino 'Really Liked' “Joker: Folie à Deux”: Joaquin Phoenix Gave 'One of the Best Performances I've Ever Seen'
Quentin Tarantino “really got caught up into” the ‘Joker’ sequel starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga
For Quentin Tarantino, Joaquin Phoenix is no joke.
Joker: Folie à Deux, director Todd Phillips’ sequel to the DC Comics-inspired origin story for the iconic Batman villain, premiered on Oct. 4 to mixed reviews and a poor box office performance. But Tarantino, 61, is among its supporters.
“I really, really liked it, really. A lot. Like, tremendously,” the Oscar-winning filmmaker said on the Tuesday, Oct. 29 episode of The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast.
“I went to see it expecting to be impressed by the filmmaking,” Tarantino said, “but I thought it was going to be an arms-length, intellectual exercise that ultimately I wouldn’t think worked like a movie... but I didn’t find it an intellectual exercise. I really got caught up into it.”
Related: Joker: Folie à Deux Review: Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga Sing a Duet That's Way Out of Tune
He had particular praise for Phoenix, 50, as Arthur Fleck a.k.a. Joker and Lady Gaga as Harleen "Lee" Quinzel a.k.a. Harley Quinn, likening them to the characters he wrote in the 1994 crime romance movie Natural Born Killers played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis.
“As much as [2019’s Joker] was indebted to Taxi Driver, this seems pretty f---ing indebted to Natural Born Killers,” said Tarantino. “That’s the Natural Born Killers I would have dreamed of seeing.”
Calling the original film “one-note,” he added that Phoenix gave “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life” in Folie à Deux.
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He also appeared to enjoy that Folie à Deux is a movie musical, saying, “I really liked the musical sequences. I got really caught up. I thought the more banal the songs were, the better they were. I find myself listening to the lyrics of ‘For Once in My Life’ in a way I never have before.”
Plus, the Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood director was able to “laugh without bothering everybody” in an almost empty theater to his heart’s content. “I know I’m laughing at scenes that other people wouldn’t be laughing at… I thought it was really funny.”
Related: How Joker Fans Are Feeling About Folie à Deux's Controversial Ending
While the original Joker grossed over $1 billion globally and earned Phoenix a lead actor Oscar, its sequel has earned roughly $60 million domestically and $200 million worldwide so far.
Joker: Folie à Deux is in theaters now.